A very rare glimpse of Kerrville in 1881

"On the road to Kerrville," by L. W. MacDonald, 1881.
Click on any image to enlarge.

Years ago, a kind friend gave me a framed set of illustrations from sketches by L. W. MacDonald which were originally published in "Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper," in New York, on May 28, 1881. They're detailed illustrations of cowboys driving cattle, one showing the herd and cowboys on a road; the other, in a hill-crowded valley lined with trees.

Of special interest are the captions. One reads "On the road to Kerrville," and the other, "Rounding up the cattle." At the bottom of the page it reads "Cattle-raising on our great plains.--

Scenes at Kerrville, Texas."

Images of Kerrville from 1881 are exceptionally rare. There are two main reasons: there were few if any cameras here during those years, nor any easy way to develop photographs even if you had a camera; and second, there were not a lot of people here. Some sources say the population of Kerrville in 1880 was only 156 people.

These illustrations of cowboys, of course, were not photographs, but were drawn from sketches by L. W. MacDonald. Still, they show Kerrville when it was still a tiny town beside the Guadalupe River.

There are only a few structures in Kerrville today which were here in 1881. The Favorite Saloon building, at 709 Water Street, was built in 1874 by F. J. Hamer. The Gregory Hotel building may have been around in 1880; after many renovations and additions, it became Pampell's, and today is the home of the Il Posto restaurant. The oldest part of the Schreiner store still standing probably dates from 1882, though the oldest part of the Schreiner Mansion dates from 1879.

In 1881 there were no church buildings in Kerrville. The Union Church was completed around Christmas, 1885; St. Peter's Episcopal Church first building was built around 1884, but that original building lacked a belfry until 1898.

The railroad did not arrive in Kerrville until 1887. Kerrville was not incorporated until 1889.

Let's look now at the illustrations published in New York in 1881.

In "On the road to Kerrville," there are several parts of the drawing that look very true to our community, like the shape of the hills, and the juniper tree on the hillside. The other flora shown in the image also seem plausible.

There are very few buildings in the image, which would be about right, and I don't see any church steeples among them. The poor building right on the riverbank is in harm's way the next time the Guadalupe decides to flood. I don't see any exact renditions of the few buildings I know were standing in Kerrville in 1881, but I don't think that matters much. The artist was not trying to illustrate Kerrville; these images were about cattle and the men that worked cattle.

These images show a glimpse of our community before the convenience and accuracy of easy photography. They show cowboys hard at work, negotiating difficult terrain, handling stampedes, driving a herd of cattle to market. They illustrate a way of life which was dangerous and difficult.

We know so little about the earliest days of our hill country communities. 

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who is happy he lives in the present day. Life here in 1881 would have been a lot of very hard work. This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead May 8, 2025.

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